


tad-pole dance dance revolution

by greenbucket



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Developing Relationship, Drunkenness, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Knitting, M/M, Multi, Threesome - F/M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-01
Updated: 2018-12-01
Packaged: 2019-09-04 22:44:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,676
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16798519
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greenbucket/pseuds/greenbucket
Summary: Privately, Ford is pretty sure half of the SMH have spontaneously started crying without knowing why. Their entire tadpole contingent partying it up in the lax bro house? ForChristmas?





	tad-pole dance dance revolution

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bookwyrmling](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bookwyrmling/gifts).



“This feels like some kind of sacrilege,” Tango whisper-yells into Ford’s ear, only audible at all because it’s quieter and slightly less crowded in the kitchen. It’s still pretty fucking loud, though, and they’re still having to stand pressed together against the sink.

Privately, Ford agrees with him and is pretty sure half of the SMH have spontaneously started crying without knowing why. Their entire tadpole contingent partying it up in the lax bro house? For _Christmas_? Betrayal of the highest order. Like, it’s actually not as bad as Ford had thought it might be – although the music choices are an abomination and there is a strong stench of toxic masculinity in the air – but it’s the principle of the thing.

“Chill out,” is what Ford says, because she knows Tango would take the betrayal idea a thousand percent seriously and feel really bad. “We’re here to make Whiskey happy, okay? Keep your head in the game.” She nudges his cup closer to his face and he obediently takes a sip.

“Oh, wow. How do you make the sweetest drinks ever?” he asks, peering into the cup half-pleased, half-grossed out. “I swear I saw you put like, a _lot_ of alcohol and a normal amount of soda?”

“It’s the sweetness of my personality,” Ford tells him, because she’s taking her drink mixing secrets to the grave. She’s about found the perfect balance of palatable yet intoxicating, if she does say so herself; she takes a nice gulp of her own drink, just to check, and lets herself really feel how dizzy she is for a moment. “Hey, Tango, how long has Whiskey been gone?”

Tango squints at his ugly wristwatch, blinks a few times, then gives up on the trying task of reading a watch face and gets his phone out. “Like, twenty minutes?” 

Ford’s stomach sinks. “Shit.”

Way back when two weeks ago, Whiskey had specifically invited Ford and Tango over to chill in his dorm room and then asked, “Do you guys want to come to a lax party with me?”

And Tango said, “Why?” and, “Is that allowed?” and, “When?” and, “Where is it?”

“In the lax house across the street from the Haus, I’d guess,” Ford said.

And Whiskey had confirmed that it was, in fact, being held in the lax house across the street. “It’ll be their last big one before winter break,” he said, “and not to sound lame but it would just be cool for you guys to come and we could hang out before we don’t see each other for ages. Although… anyway, yeah, they’re not that bad a bunch of guys, they’d let you come if you came with me.”

Ford squinted at _that_ , but also at him. “Anything else you wanted to say there?”

“Nope,” Whiskey replied, too fast.

“Really?” said Tango, seemingly guileless as ever. “That pause after you said ‘although’ definitely seemed like you wanted to say something else.”

Whiskey looked flushed and fidgety and after an even longer pause said, “Look, I just get kind of messy, okay? When I drink. Which is why I don’t do it with team so much, and it’s not a big deal but I thought maybe I should mention it before you both decide if you want to come with.”

Ford had shared a look with Tango that had contained entire essays about what ‘messy’ might mean. Then they’d both shrugged and agreed to go along with Whiskey to the lax party. It was half for genuine friendship and good broliness, half for curiosity – and that curiosity in itself halved again into curiosity about lax culture, and curiosity about what exactly Whiskey getting messy looked like.

Back in the present, that curiosity has long been sated. If anything, Ford wishes she had a little more curiosity left unfulfilled; lax bros are still lax bros, even if they have let some of the hockey team into their house, and she gets why the SMH are feuding with them.

As for Whiskey being ‘messy’ it’s– well. It seems to have been code for horny, because all three of them have only been at the party a few hours and already Whiskey has wandered off to flirt and snuggle up with people like five times. They find him standing by a little open space under the stairs, watching a girl go by with interest. Ford and Tango squeeze their way in either side of him, Tango having to duck a little.

“She’s gay,” Ford tells Whiskey helpfully, giving him a friendly knock on the shoulder to ease the blow a little.

“Really? How do you know?” Whiskey asks, which is sort of a douche move but Ford will let it slide for now.

“How do you think?” she asks, layering on the implication a little thick. They hadn’t actually got _that_ far but they’re platonic acquaintance-ish buddies now, and Ford can say with confidence that she’s not into guys. “Her name’s Juliet if you’d like to just be friends.”

Whiskey shrugs. “If I see her around, I guess. No big.”

Ford realises after a moment or two that her and Tango and Whiskey are still cuddled up half under the stairs, but like fuck is she going to be the first one to point it out. She feels very warm all over and not just from the drink and talking about her sex life.

“In your defence, she’s really hot,” says Ford after a bit, mostly to distract herself from how the three of them are still cuddled up half under the stairs. Like fuck is she going to be the first one to point it out, even if she does feel very warm all over and not just from the drinking. Tango nods in solidarity to her comment, even though he’s told her before that he leans pretty heavily towards dudes.

“She’s cute,” Whiskey agrees, “but thanks anyway for stopping an awkward situation. Want me to get you two a drink as a thank you?”

Tango smiles widely and says, “I didn’t do anything, but if you're offering, thanks.”

“I’m not sure it’s much of a thank you gift if it’s crappy beer from a keg,” says Ford, because that’s what it’ll be since Whiskey can’t mix drinks for shit, “but sure. Meet us back here in ten?”

Whiskey nods. “No getting distracted,” he agrees, and vanishes into the crowd to battle his way toward the keg.

“What do you bet he lets his dick get him distracted in like five seconds?” Tango asks, looking out at all the lax bros and their guests posturing and grinding and discreetly puking.

“We can’t measure that, and I know better than to bet on something I can’t win.”

“Smart,” says Tango approvingly. Then, after a moment, “not even if the loser pays for a Superberry’s trip?”

Ford does love frozen yoghurt but her decision stands – she’s not getting fooled by that trick again. She’s bought one too many Superberry pots for Tango already this year.

It’s quieter in the little semi-under-the-stairs alcove, especially with their lull in conversation, the party still loud but nowhere near the eardrum splitting volume outside of it. Ford feels the late hour and the alcohol starting to weigh on her; she lifts Tango’s arm and puts it around her so she can lean more comfortably against him. He pulls her against his side easily.

“Whiskey is looking so good this evening,” she remarks mournfully, resting her head in Tango’s kinda rank armpit. She figures at this point in the whole thing it’s better to just let this kind of thing out, be honest with one of her best bros or whatever one of the boys would recommend.

Tango, like an evasive fake friend, says, “Do you think?”

Ford leans against him more heavily instead of shoving him, almost losing balance anyway (because she is really very dizzy) until Tango steadies her. “Don’t even. I saw the way you were _looking_ at him earlier.”

“Ford, come on,” Tango says, almost an admonishment. “You know I don’t… think about people like that.”

Ford does, but she also knows asexuality is a spectrum and shit and that for Tango it’s not an iron rule, that he’s got a complex, ever-shifting relationship with sex and sexual attraction and everything. They’ve talked about it at length on long, meandering, very lost walks back across campus after kegsters. After a couple of long, meandering, carefully directionless making out sessions, too.

And with the nose-and-cheekbones flush Tango had been sporting earlier when Whiskey had come down from his dorm in a polo that was fucking straining around his biceps– well. By now, Ford knows Tango’s tells.

“Not today then?” Ford asks, surprised, accidentally shoving her face more closely into his armpit in an attempt to look at his face.

“I don’t know,” he says. “Like not _not_ today? Whiskey’s shirt does look good on him, but I don’t want to… I mean, yeah, it’s like, _kind of_ not today? Ugh, I don’t know how to describe it. My head hurts.”

“Don’t stress about it,” Ford tells him, feeling bad for making him examine it too closely. “Whiskey’s probably too busy getting off with a lax bro right now to pay attention to us anyway.”

It’s not a legit sore spot for either of them, Ford doesn’t think, because actually getting with Whiskey has never even been a thing that could actually happen. Not like it’s out of the realm of possibility, exactly, since they’re all friends after all, but it’s just not something either her or Tango have ever suggested pursuing in all their long conversations. So it’s just something Ford hasn’t considered in like, a real way. Which is fine because nothing is going to happen.

Also, Ford is hardly going to step on Tango’s toes by going for their friend that he possibly likes and/or wants to have sex with. That’s not bro code or whatever. And Whiskey himself is plenty busy in the dating department, or just the getting laid one.

“Yeah, he probably is,” Tango agrees. “I can’t believe he asks us to come along to hang out before break and then abandons us half the time because he’s _drunk_.”

“I mean, fair, but like you’re not also drunk?”

“Obviously not,” Tango scoffs, in the kind of tone only a drunk person would take.

Ford puts the sure, Jan into her expression and saves her words for, “Honestly, I think we’re going to have to pick our battles on this one. I mean, realistically, the only way we could _really_ take focus from his horny drunk shenanigans is if we like, I don’t know, had sex with him ourselves.”

Tango’s arm goes tense around her. “Yeah, guess so,” he says, voice suspiciously light.

Ford’d been toeing her usual line of kidding-except-kinda-not, but with the way Tango’s reacting something starts to click in place in her head. “Tango?”

Tango’s arm drops away from her completely and he doesn’t help steady her when it nearly throws her off balance again. “Don’t. It’s not like, a thing, okay?”

Her and Tango have shared whatever admiration-crush-thing they both have for Whiskey for so long – been pretty open about it with each other even mid-making out session – that Ford hadn’t ever expected Tango to suddenly get cagey about it. She hadn’t expected for him to suddenly want to _do something_ about it, either, in all fairness, but unless she’s reading him all wrong that looks to be the current situation.

Ford doesn’t force her way back under his arm the way she’d like to, but she does rest her hand on said arm in reassurance. She might be drunk and taken aback, but Tango’s one of her best friends as well as her crush-partner, and it’s not like she’s _opposed_ to doing something, especially with the help of some liquid courage.

“Hey, no, Tony, listen. I don’t know what exactly you’re picturing here? But I’m obviously down and it seems you’re down, and if Whiskey’s down too then it could totally be a thing.” She goes over that in her mind quickly and figures it probably made some sense. “Just say what you’re thinking.”

Tango’s nose and cheekbone flush is out in full force again as he says, almost too quiet to hear even in the protected stair alcove, “I was thinking more like you guys together and me, uh– watching?”

Ford ignores the bloom of heat in her stomach, keeping her voice carefully steady and neutral as she asks, “No touching you at all or just no touching like, below the belt?”

“… Maybe I could be involved a bit,” Tango says, considering and flaming red. “I think I’d like some stuff, it’s kind of hard to tell sometimes what’s going to feel okay and what’s not going to on like, a less black and white day. It would be more of a trial and error, I guess?”

Ford swallows even though her mouth is dry, and she’s acutely aware that her drink has run out and Whiskey hasn’t come back with the beers. “I’m down for that.”

Tango bobs his head. “Cool! Cool, cool. That’s cool.”

Cool, Ford’s brain echoes back to her, in a very not-cool tone. This is, honestly, the world turned upside down. Doors of possibility opening on all sides where before they had been locked under ‘well, nothing’s going to happen with me and Tango and Whiskey anyways so ignore it.’

After a moment where her entire worldview does a slight shift, she asks, “Should we go and find Whiskey, then?”

“For what?” Whiskey asks, having finally returned and apparently not been entirely waylaid by the demands of his dick. His eye catches on something just above both her and Tango and he says, almost cheery, “Oh, hey, mistletoe.”

Ford looks up and, “Huh.” There _is_ mistletoe, pinned up on the side of the stairs right above their little alcove. It’s a level of forethought that she wouldn’t have predicted in the lax bros, but really she should’ve been on red alert for this kind of shit all evening.

“How long has that been there?” Tango asks, unpinning the mistletoe and inspecting it like he isn’t quite sure it’s legit. After turning it over a few times he apparently deems it _something_ and shoves it in his pocket. “Rules are rules. Lay one on me, Miss Denice.”

He’s bent his knees slightly so that Ford can reach, and that plus his use of her first name makes her roll her eyes before sneaking a little tongue into the kiss. It’s been a while since she’s got with Tango – for the broadest definition of got with, since they’ve technically never done more than kissing as the opportunity for more has never aligned with him feeling it – and Ford had forgotten how nice a kissing partner he is. The way Tango kisses back makes it seem maybe he’s a little thrown, too, at how easy it is to slip back into the rhythm of things, remembering each other.

When they do break apart, Ford is feeling fidgety and her skin hot and she has to pull away from where she’s got all up close with Tango. His skin is warm, too, and he’s reached the stage of sweating where it’s bringing out the smell of his detergent (which Ford knows for a fact he always uses too much of) stronger than the smell of his frat bro deodorant. She doesn’t want to move away.

When she looks at Whiskey, he’s watching, eyes wide and dark and his mouth slightly open. His eyes follow the movement as Ford pulls the fallen strap of her top back up to her shoulder and Ford’s stomach twists. Tango must have had a hand on her shoulder at some point, but she’s dizzy and tipsy already and thrown by the intensity of what was meant to be a quick mistletoe peck and can’t remember.

Whiskey’s still holding two beers, so Ford takes one and swallows a couple of big gulps to distract herself, or calm herself, or something.

She feels suddenly all jittery, but where before Tango had seemed similarly nervous, either the kissing itself or the way Whiskey is reacting have soothed that away. Ford watches over the rim of her cup as Tango grins at Whiskey – bright and sweet and a little cocky – and takes the second beer, throwing his arm back around Ford. “Thanks, man!”

Ford watches Whiskey watch the line of Tango’s throat as he chugs the beer and she doesn’t look away when Whiskey’s focus switches back over to her, eyes still as wide and a flush so similar to Tango’s across his nose and cheekbones. Under the stairs in the lax bro house isn’t really where Ford had imagined this, not that she had really let herself imagine this at all; as a location it’s a bit lacking in sex appeal and as a scenario it’s a bit ambiguous in a long-term sense and dizzy headed in the present.

But they’d all be stupid to miss an opportunity like this, so Ford reaches out, leaving her hand for Whiskey to take. He stares at it, and says, “Really?” and Ford says, “Yup,” and Tango says, “You’ve wanted to bone us since forever, right? We’ve definitely wanted to bone you, so.”

Whiskey doesn’t say anything to that, his flush deepening and his expression turning to a I-just-swallowed-a-golf-ball kind of look – Ford’s patience runs out there and she takes Whiskey’s hand, tugging him closer to their under the stairs possible-threesome prep group.

Whiskey blinks at them both, all the horny tipsy confidence they’ve been witness to all evening seemingly melted away.

Ford is distantly aware that they’re still at the lax house and this is probably all going to be in the Swallow or something equally hilarious and horrific. Not the actual boning, if they ever get to that, because that’s not Ford’s thing – but still. Them, a huddled three under the stairs, taking part in some very awkwardly orchestrated smooching. The chirping from the boys will be unending.

“Do you want me to put the mistletoe back up to help?” Tango asks after a moment where they all just look at each other and take in the fact that they’re going to do this. At least this once.

Whiskey’s bewilderment snaps at that and he rolls his eyes. “You good for kissing?” he asks, already turned to Tango and their faces like, an inch apart.

“Were you not watching just now?” Tango says easily by way of reply, even as Ford can sense his relief in Whiskey leaving him free to call the shots as they come. His arm is still around her and Whiskey’s hand is still in hers and it’s a nice way to feel included when Whiskey finally does close the gap and kiss Tango for real.

After Tango and Whiskey have pulled apart and she’s given them a requisite amount of dazed-and-horny gazing at each other time, Whiskey turns to Ford and gets the same bewildered, soft look and hesitates. Not like he’s unsure, but like he wants to remember it, if Ford had to put it into words.

But Ford isn’t ready to do that or think about how that look makes her feel so she cuts to the chase, leaning in to kiss Whiskey herself. He’s in desperate need of a lip balm and tastes like the nasty beer he’d got them, but the kiss is firm and steady and slow and Ford feels on the continual edge of a shiver. Tango’s arm still around her is both grounding and distracting.

“You’re not going to get a whiskey dick on us later, are you?” Ford chirps when the kiss comes to an end, and it’s weaker than she would’ve liked but she’s breathless and so, so ready to be somewhere more private.

Tango snorts loudly and Whiskey rolls his eyes again, harder this time. “Very funny,” he says, and then, “Okay, if we’re doing this let’s do this. Back to mine?”

They follow Whiskey out from under the stairs and away from the lax bro house. When she looks Tango has his nose and cheekbone flush hard and Ford feels like she’s back on the edge of a shiver again.

\---

“Wow,” says Ford, staring up at Whiskey’s ceiling. He’s so lucky to have a single, is one thought that comes to mind, but the other is, “No whiskey dick there, huh?” She can still feel her pulse in her throat, her muscles just starting to relax after a good orgasm.

“I didn’t even use my dick,” Whiskey points out, matter of fact.

He looks down at his fingers, considering, then raises them halfway to his mouth. Ford’s brain simultaneously shouts _holy shit that would be so hot_ and _too hot abort_ and the second hangs there until Whiskey, apparently unaware of Ford’s suspense, lowers his hand to wipe on his sheets; Ford breathes out, caught between relief and disappointment.

Tango catches her eye from over Whiskey’s shoulder and gives her an all too knowing look, so she shoots back a can-you-blame-me head tilt and gets a fair-enough nod back. Then he gets back to kissing along Whiskey’s neck, probably easier now Whiskey isn’t focused on Ford and can lean back against Tango’s chest. Ford isn’t complaining – she’s happy watching Whiskey slowly come apart a little under Tango’s mouth and hands, and happy watching Tango do the taking apart, while she recovers.

Eventually, once Whiskey is flushed and getting noisier every time Tango presses kisses against his skin, every time his hands sweep over his lower stomach and along his thighs without actually getting to his dick, Ford rolls onto her knees and crawls across the tiny space of the bed.

Tango looks pretty flushed himself and Ford can see he’s hard. That’s something they’ll have to figure out when it comes to it, since when she asks, “Do you want me to take the dick handling from here?” he looks thankful and returns to just focusing on sucking an impressive collection of hickeys onto Whiskey’s neck.

The sound Whiskey makes at that makes Ford’s own orgasm feel long behind her. She’s already debating if they could do this again (sometime when they’re all soberer and have been tested and/or have protection to hand) before she even gets a hand on Whiskey’s dick; his choked-off moan when she does, plus the sound of Tango’s murmured encouragements and the twisting heat in her own stomach, more than decide it for her.

They’re definitely doing this again.

**\---**

**tad-pole dance dance revolution**

**basic whisk step**  
so…. could phone sex be a thing over break?  
not to be horny in the gc but break is long and boring  
and we already agreed what’s happening nxt semester so like  
we could just start now

 **hot to foxtrot**  
‘not to be horny in the gc’ – c.w. (2016)

 **tango nuevo**  
a legendary moment?? Historic???

 **basic whisk step**  
It’s basic etiquette but whatever fuck me I guess

 **tango nuevo**  
well if you insist!

 **hot to foxtrot**  
skhfkjhsdjfhshdfsdkfhkshdf tango omg  
same

 **basic whisk step**  
well sure why not

 **hot to foxtrot**  
:OOOOOO

 **basic whisk step**  
what? I’m down if you guys both are after break  
though not before a game

 **hot to foxtrot**  
:OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO  
tango?  
tony?????  
connor u killed tony

 **tango nuevo**  
Im not dead just processing  
that’s cool!!!!!!!!! we can discuss it. or you guys can

 **basic whisk step**  
Dude no we’ll discuss it with you too

 **hot to foxtrot**  
obvs tango don’t be dumb  
anyway i’m AT WORK but i vote yes for phone sex  
see u all later maybe xoxo ;)

 **basic whisk step**  
;)

 **tango nuevo**  
;(  
shit I mean ;)

\---

“Are you and Tango and Whiskey dating?” Bully asks one day in the Haus kitchen, a few weeks after they all get back from winter break.

He’s doing the washing up, bright pink gloves up to his elbows, because he says he finds it soothing. Ford is perched on the counter, having been placed on drying duty because their draining rack can fit approximately one pot or three plates. Across the room Ford can practically see Bitty’s ears perk up at the turn in conversation – she knows he’s been wondering but been too polite to ask, and in turn she’s been playing a waiting game all break and the semester so far to see when he’d crack. Damn it, Bully.

“Nope,” Ford says, “we’re just friends.”

“Hm,” says Bitty, loud and like he’d been involved in the conversation in the first place. Ford loves the guy, but he is transparent as anything.

Bully sounds a little sceptical when he says, “Oh, okay,” but he hands her a fistful of cutlery to dry all the same.

\---

“Still no boyfriend?” Ford’s grandma asks, sneaky and hamming up the sad concern. “Girlfriend?”

“No and no,” Ford tells her. Usually she loves talking to her grandma, but damn. She gets enough interrogation about this kind of shit now from her friends that the usual older-relative line of questioning is more grating than usual. She considers faking an internet cut out to end the call early but that feels too mean. Her grandma means well. “I’m busy, I’ve got college work and theatre stuff and the team to manage. Who has time to date these days?”

Her grandma sighs. “You’re such a good girl, you know that? Denice, you listen here and stop looking at your phone a minute. You deserve someone who’s going to take care of you and love you for who you are and all of that, but you aren’t going to find them sitting on your ass. Understand?”

Ford swipes away a notification from the tadpole chat without reading it. Tango and Whiskey are debating what takeout to order later as a reward after they put a solid few hours in at the library and it’s been going on for a while – even as Ford swipes it away, another notification comes in.

She tries to focus on what her grandma is saying, even if it’s not what she wants to hear or to talk about ever again or for at least like, the rest of the year. “I’m not sitting on my ass, that’s the whole point.”

“I mean in the dating scene, Denice, don’t play dumb.”

“The dating scene?” Ford repeats, horrified. “What do you know about that? Got something to tell me?”

Her grandma shrugs and says, all casual, “I know things. Tinder and the like.”

“I’m going to pretend you didn’t just say that. We’re forgetting that happened, the both of us. Deal?”

“I just like to know there’s someone who’s going to be in your corner, taking care of you out there.” Ford notices she doesn’t agree to never mention Tinder again, but there’s enough genuine concern and love in her grandma’s voice and her words that Ford feels her irritation ease.

Tango sends her a message outside the group chat that reads _back me up on Thai and I WILL give you a neck massage later y/y_. It’s followed moments later by one from Whiskey, also outside the group chat, which reads _don’t listen to Tango, whatever he’s saying he’s a liar. We should get pizza because then I can give you all of my crusts just like you like :) good deal right?_

“Always looking at that phone,” her grandma sighs from Ford’s laptop, like they aren’t currently using technology to communicate at that second.

Ford shuts off the screen without replying, preferring not to take sides and to avoid one of her grandma’s technology rants. “First, I’m in Massachusetts, not the wild west, I don’t need someone to take care of me ‘out here’,” she starts, and tries not to smile too fondly as she sees her phone light up with the continued debate. “Second, I have plenty of people taking care of me just fine.”

\---

The first time after they invest in a sex toy or two is just before spring break, since before that none of them had had any of their own and they hadn’t really been a thing long enough to warrant like, spending real money on elevating the experience. Tango is going back home briefly for the break while Ford and Whiskey are staying in Samwell and the separation isn’t really anything, but still, it sort of feels like something.

It makes it a little more intense, anyhow. Ford gets the feeling the memory is something she’s going to be revisiting for a long, long while.

\---

**tad-pole dance dance revolution**

**tango nuevo**  
ok guys idk how this happened????? but my mom thinks were dating?????

 **basic whisk step**  
Did you tell her we’re not?

 **tango nuevo**  
um!!!!!!

 **hot to foxtrot**  
i’m taking that as a no

 **tango nuevo**  
she was so happy for me!!!  
or us??  
she was happy!!!! I didn’t want to make her sad :(

 **basic whisk step**  
fwb isn’t good enough for her?

 **hot to foxtrot**  
skhfskjdfhskjdfh

 **tango nuevo**  
omg I can’t tell my mom Im friends w benefits w two people??????????  
She’s catholic!!!!!!!

 **hot to foxtrot**  
dating 2 people is cool though?

 **tango nuevo**  
looks like it?  
she’s like progressive??? but not 2 fwb progressive  
anyways she’s really pleased  
and also she’s driving me back for the second week of spring break AND bringing my little sister for the trip so just like don’t deny it if they ask ok thanks  
:)

 **hot to foxtrot**  
lmaoooo

 **tango nuevo**  
:) :) :) what’s that lmao for huh

 **basic whisk step**  
………………… is this payback for me asking you guys to fake date me that one time  
like are you kidding  
because that was 10 minutes with some random dude, not however long with my family

 **tango nuevo**  
no! it’s not payback and I’m not kidding

 **hot to foxtrot**  
yes this is payback

 **basic whisk step**  
well then  
:/

 **tango nuevo**  
:/

 **hot to foxtrot**  
:/

 **basic whisk step**  
ok fine we’ve got your back tango

 **hot to foxtrot**  
who’s we???  
jk ofc we will lie to your mom and sister for you tony :)

 **tango nuevo**  
thanks guys love u youre the best!!!!!!!!

 **hot to foxtrot**  
♥♥♥♥♥♥

 **basic whisk step**  
Phone/skype sex later??? ;)

 **hot to foxtrot**  
ffs   
actually yeah ok it’s been ages since we saw u tony :(  
like five days but still

 **tango nuevo**  
♥

Ford grins helplessly down at her phone for a moment or two, absentmindedly finishing her row of knitting so she doesn’t drop any stitches. Maybe it’s kind of boring scheduling phone sex rather than falling into the spontaneity of the moment but just in a practical sense it works better this way, what with Tango at home and Whiskey the only one with a single.

Besides, it’s been a good few months now since they started this whole arrangement, so Ford is pretty sure it’s excessive for everything they do to be at Maximum Sexiness. Everything they do definitely isn’t at that level; they’re friends before they’re friends with benefits, after all, and Ford has seen both Tango and Whiskey at some severely unsexy moments in their lives, just as they’ve seen her.

She’s maybe a little concerned about the pretending to date for Tango’s family thing, because she’s met his mom a couple of times in person before and joined in when Tango FaceTimes his family and they’re all really nice. Ford doesn’t want them to find out it’s a lie, or that they’re having sex out of wedlock or whatever, and then hate her and upset Tango.

But like, it’s not a big concern, because she’s pretty sure that won’t happen. They’ve gone along with people’s assumptions a bunch before already and it’s never felt particularly hard or required for her or Tango or Whiskey to do anything they wouldn’t already do. They’ve got this in the bag, pretty much.

What Ford _is_ concerned about is her knitting. It’s been a task in itself hiding knitting three sweaters from not only Tango and Whiskey, but also from anyone on the team because they can’t keep their mouths shut for shit. It’s been tough, but she’s managed it to the point where she’s two thirds of the way done, with just her own to finish. And she’s cutting it very, very close to the deadline of Tango coming back from New Jersey.

Ford supposes she could gift Tango and Whiskey theirs and just wear her own another time, but that’s not what she wants. They’re a team, they’re the tadpoles – she knitted these sweaters for them especially, as a trio.

If sweater magic is real, she’s poured every good feeling into these sweaters to make them like, the literal manifestation of how glad she is to have found two hockey bros that are inexplicably some of her favourite people. Two dudes that are honestly a bit boring on paper and are hit and miss as her trivia night partners, but are two dudes who she likes, who make her laugh and who care deeply and who she has amazing sex with. Tango and Whiskey are turning out to be her _people_ ; she wants to know them and keep getting to know them probably for forever.

There is a bit of her, too, that’s worried about the sweater curse. It’s not high on her list of concerns though, not even high on her list of knitting-related concerns – first, because she’s not superstitious, second because she trusts Tango (fully) and Whiskey (mostly) not to be douchebags that undervalue her work, and finally, because they’d have to be dating for the sweater curse to break them up.

And her and Tango and Whiskey aren’t dating. At least, not really? Bitty’s voice says _Hm_ rather loudly in the back of Ford’s mind, but she ignores that and gets back to her knitting. It’s like she told her grandma – she really just doesn’t have the time, especially if she’s going to take time out for phone sex later, to consider relationships. The sweaters will have to do.


End file.
